Colombia: Biodiversity, Biotechnology And Intellectual Property: Their Relevance For The Development Of Colombia

Biotechnology has emerged as one of the most
forward-looking fields of science in recent decades, and a large
number of nations have set their sights on it as a long-term
development pillar, given its wide range of applications and the
leapfrogging of current information technology, which allows to
further exploit its potential.

Biotechnology has already proven to be an option for growth in
multiple economic sectors, finding applications of high importance
in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, food, veterinary, cosmetic,
environmental, agricultural, energy, among others, which make it an
opportunity for those developing countries in search of a boost for
the progress of their economies.

It is then in biotechnology that a country like
Colombia, which occupies the second place after Brazil in world
biodiversity, with around 10% of the fauna and flora of the planet,
can find possibilities of great impact for its economic growth and
technological development. However, it is not a simple
challenge if one takes into account the little investment that,
unfortunately, is destined for R&D in the country. For example,
according to World Bank data for the year 2014, Colombia allocated
about 0.2% of GDP for this purpose, an amount significantly lower
than the world average of about 2%, and much lower than the number
one country in this regard, South Korea, which investment in
R&D is above 4% of GDP.

In this manner, the government, academics and companies must
work together to transform this enormous biodiversity into a
factory of knowledge and innovation that translates into solutions
to both local and global problems, which in the long term will
allow to narrow the economic-technological gap between Colombia and
the most developed countries in the world.

Thus, in the commitment to research in general as a driving
force for development, and in particular concerning the emerging
biotechnology, intellectual property plays a decisive role for its
progress; this is due to the fact that tools for the protection of
inventions, such as patents, greatly influence the decision of
companies to invest or not their capital in a particular sector,
and even more in biotechnology, which is undoubtedly one of those
with highest cost in both R&D and product development and
process design.

Hence, it is possible to evidence in different countries a
closely related upward trend between R&D spending and the
filing of patent applications, making them a clear indicator of a
country's innovation and inventive step. By way of example,
this is clearly visible when comparing the number of patent
applications filed in Colombia and South Korea, using data provided
by the World Bank in this regard for the same year mentioned above.
In Colombia, in 2014, 260 patent applications were filed by
residents and 1898 by non-residents; values much lower than those
in South Korea where the numbers amount to 164073 patent
applications filed by residents and 46219 by non-residents for the
same year.

Therefore, it is necessary a vision change from the government
of Colombia that promotes the injection of public and private
capital in R&D, which is supported by an intellectual property
system that provides adequate legal protection to the inventions
and compensates the economic efforts made in innovation. Taking
into account the characteristics of the country, Colombia has the
potential to establish, as one of the pillars of its economy, its
own biodiversity together with biotechnology; however, to this day,
this latter is greatly underestimated.

In this sense, the challenge for Colombia in the coming
years is to recognize and take advantage of the immense potential
for scientific research that it possesses, especially in
terms of biotechnology, in order to have in the future the ability
to offer products and services with high standards of quality and
added value, derived from a sustainable exploitation of its natural
resources that goes hand in hand with policies ensuring the
technical, legal and economic conditions conducive to its
realization.

Through the enactment of Law No. 5709, the City of Buenos Aires has taken a step forward regarding patient protection and possible conflicts of interest that might affect therapeutic decisions...

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